Main menu

Monthly Archives: May 2014

With very few books written about Canadian bands, let alone punk bands, comes this new book all about the rise and peak of Hamilton, Ontario’s biggest band, and for a moment, the biggest in Canada. Giving the reader a great look back at a band that should have been on the top for a lot longer than they did, and a lot of personal memories from fans and friends, this is the place to get an idea of the gritty, raw fun that made our “Teenage Beer Drinking Parties” so good.

The band that got rock music banned from Ontario Place with the “Punk Rock Riot” that people still talk about today with fond memories has etched out a place in history that will never be repeated again. The band started out just having a good time, playing original music, and got caught up in the punk / new wave scene at the time, wrote fantastic music that still holds up and sadly, faded from most people’s radar in just a few years time. The writing gives you an insight to each of the band member’s lives, showing you how they met and became household names, and then the downfall that occurred too soon. The prose is snappy, well-paced and shows the gritty place that was / is Hamilton and the music business at the time. It gives us a detailed look at Gordie Lewis, Frankie Venom, Steve Mahon, and Nick Stipanitz, from their humble beginnings in Stipanitz’s family’s basement in Hamilton, to the Toronto punk scene and onwards to chart success and relative obscurity. Questionable management decisions, record companies that had no idea how to market or record the band, and a terrible highway crash that kept guitarist Lewis off stage for a year, all added up to a band that had more bad luck than good. They released seven studio albums, a live album and an EP over 29 years, but the glory years were 1979 – 1983 when their first three albums came out.

The book is a must-have for anyone who was around at the time and for newbies that want to know about a band that never got their due. The pictures are fantastic, showing the band having fun and giving their all on stage, the writing makes you feel that you are right there with the band, living out the good and bad times. The only criticism’s that I have are that more pictures would have been great, a discography of their music and more details about the latter part of the band, such as their other projects, re-formation, and the passing of Venom and the ongoing band. It isn’t a lot to complain about, so go out and grab a copy and stop being a “Disgusteen.”

These guys from Chandler, AZ started up back in 2007 and after some lineup shuffles, have put out this hard-hitting six song EP. The band has released four studio EPs: The Punk Rock HonkyTonk, Resurwreckshun, Outside Looking In and its most recent EP, Dia de los Muertos.

Things start off with the instrumental title track that gives the EP a nice jump-start with pounding drums, fantastic guitar playing and a thick bass to get you ready for the rest of the songs. “Sick and Broken” starts off with bouncing bass, then the drums kick in, the rough guitar playing blasts in and finally the vocals come in with a lot of melody to make for a great, punchy track that gets your feet tapping. “One Foot in The Grave” has more of a post punk sound that while being a good track, should have been placed near the end of the EP as it takes a chunk of energy out of the first half. “War Story” starts off with bag pipes and just when you think that they’ve jumped on the celtic punk bandwagon, you get a fat sounding punk song that just jumps out of the speakers with energy and slightly snotty vocals that make you smile wide. “This ain’t It” is a great rock song with punk elements mixed in, like the gritty guitar playing, and the fantastic vocals that give the song a nice bitter edge. Ending with “Empty,” a mixture of country-tinged goth rock, but not the shitty goth that is boring and morose, but is more of the thicker stuff that THE MISSION puts out, and really gives a nice texture to the EP and closes things off perfectly.

A very cool EP that mixes a few genres together to create a listening experience that will make you a fan of these guys and make you search out more from them. With only being around twenty-two minutes long, they show their strengths and give you a tease of what they are capable of.

This Sydney, Australia based hard rock quartet was formed in 2012 and they’re working on new material which will be released in small doses every few months. Their debut single “Freakshow,” gives a taste of what this band is all about, and it sure is a delicious appetizer.

The song is just over three and a half minutes long and that really goes by so fast that it leaves you really hungry for more, which is the desired effect, but damn…I need more! Carrying on the tradition of great Australian bands like AC/DC, MIDNIGHT OIL, INXS, JET, THE SAINTS, WOLFMOTHER and ROSE TATTOO, these guys give us a blast of pure energy with a chorus so infectious that you will be contaminated with the sounds of your new favorite band. The pounding drums, the bouncing bass, the slick guitar licks and the fantastic vocals all combine to create a song that would fit in any playlist from the ’70s right up to now. They have a sound that blends many genres into a rock song that gives us just enough pop to make it one of the best debuts that I’ve heard in a long time.

This stomping beast of a track will get lodged in your ears and you won’t be able to stop playing it over and over again. I don’t believe the hype that a band is fantastic until I have heard them myself, and these guys deserve every bit of the attention that they are getting.